Fuchsia Wish List

Since I don't live in the NW where they have Fuchsia Nurseries, Fuchsia Conventions, probably even Fuchsia Fairs, and I'm rooted in the Midwest with a lack of fuchsia sources, I have to feed my addiction via the internet.

Sometimes with plants I go native, back to the elemental, the parent plant. My new Fuchsia Obsession is Fuchsia Species. So far I have either purchased or found a USA source for the following:

F. boliviana
F. denticulata
F. fulgens
F. glazioviana
F. hatschbachii
F. splendens

My Fuchsia Wish List is:
F. Andrei
F. cinerea
F. dependens
F. gehrigeri
F. hartwegii
F. jimenezii
F. lehmanii
F. petiolaris
F. sanctae-rosae
F. simplicicaulis
F. venusta
F. vulcanica

I've done an internet search for fuchsia species seeds since I can't find the plants, but was unsuccessful. As far as I can determine, these species are available in England, but unless I win the lottery to finance a trip across the pond, and figure out a way to bring plants back into the US without violating customs, I will only be able to feed my addiction with online photos...which isn't the same as owning the plant.

Maybe some of my DG friends can point me in the right direction for fuchsia species on my wish list.

Maybe you have a Fuchsia Wish List you want to share?

(P.S., Since I don't currently have a fuchsia species blooming, the picture is my Fuchsia Gartenmeister Bonstedt who has a species parent: either F. triphylla or F. fulgens. Gartenmeister was released in 1905 for public trade.)

hummer, try Fuchsia Lady.com. She has a huge selection that you can look at on line and her packing is really super. Her plants aren't expensive, but the shipping is what costs. Good luck

Jeanette

Hey, Jeanette!

Earthworks/The Fuchsia Lady (http://www.fuchsias.net) is my number one go to for fuchsias, and I checked her website first when I started my species list a couple months ago. I've already bought F. denticulata from her, but that was all she had on my list. (I just rechecked to be sure new species hasn't been added, and the list hasn't changed.)

Besides Earthworks, I've only been able to find species at Fry Road, Annie's Annuals, Kartuz, and Sweet Nectar, all mail order, thank goodness!

What started me down the Fuchsia Species Obsession Path was coming across this website: http://www.fuchsias.net/mailorder/index.html (in the U.K.)

How can you look at those photos and not get hooked on fuchsia species?

Well the biggest reason to use mail order is because of the selection. Local sellers only get the hardiest Swingtime, Dark Eyes etc.

When I lived in Seattle I had beautiful fuchsias. Some baskets were almost 3 feet across and 3 feet long. Beautiful. But, they have the climate for them. Humidity, rain, and not much hot weather.

I've been growing fuchsias outside, May through November, for many years now. We have humidity, we have rain, but July and August are hot. During those months my fuchsias take a time out, no blooms, but then they start the second cycle of buds and blooms in late August and continue until the temps fall below 40 degrees. September and October 2009 were a little cooler than normal, October the wettest ever on record, and my fuchsias loved it! When just about everything else had faded, my fuchsias were going strong. That pic of my Gartenmeister was taken in June 2009. By October it was 3 times that size. I usually pot plant my fuchsias, eastern and northern exposure, but this year I'm going to try some in the ground rated cold hardy to zone 6.

And even though I have over 2 dozen fuchsias growing under lights in my basement, I still want more...more fuchisa species. I'll have to take cuttings and/or overwinter inside, because the species won't survive our winters, but I'll manage somehow.

HG, have you looked up these fuchsias here in the PlantFiles and added them to you Trade Lists? Sometimes I find what I am looking for that way. Just recently, a fellow member noticed my Ipomoea purpurea and I sent him almost all the seed from it that I had. And occasionally I even write the person who entered the plant into the Plant Files to ask them if they would be interested in a trade.

I think I know where I can find the F. venusta for you. I will ask him when I go up to see him next week-end.

PC: Thanks for the suggestion and possible find. I know there are USA nurseries out there who have some species on my list, they are just not doing mail order online, and I really don't blame them, considering shipping cost and handling time invloved, plus the risk of mailing live plants cross country. I emailed Fry Road recently and asked if they have a source for species they don't currently carry. I've even emailed the Fuchsia Society hoping they could direct me to someone, which they did, but the nursery species list was limited, also. Earthworks and Annie's Annuals have also received emails from me. I'm considering an email to a nursery in the UK begging for seeds, or being pointed in the direction of a seed source. I know I can get seeds from England easily, done that with cacti. Do you ever save fuchsia seeds and try to germinate them? That's one thing I haven't looked up in my books, but I would imagine in the wild fuchsias throw out viable seeds like all the other plants.

HG, no I've haven't tried growing from seed yet, but it is certainly something I am considering in the future. That is how they get all of the new varieties. But as you mentioned, I would imagine that the species would come true from seed. On the other hand, since they are used to develope new hybrids, gall mite resistant hybrids in particular, that might not be the case if they are in close proximity to other species. It might be necessary to isolate and hand pollinate. As they must do to keep annual varieties of flower seed true to form. I only have about five species in my collection. Mostly because they are usually large specimens and require too much space for my current location. My friend though, has a very large area and a much larger collection. So I will see what he has available. Shipping to your part of the country is problematic at this time of year though. Is your wish list intended for this spring?

PC: Any fuchsia not hardy to my zone is pot planted, so even though a species might get 6' in ideal conditions, it will be generally half that size for me. Which is good; I don't have enough places to put a lot of 6'+ bushy fuchsias in the ground around here! And you're right, too cold to be shipping plants to the Midwest right now. Any online orders I place now have delayed shipping scheduled for April. In fact, Annie's Annuals has several species on my 'source' list, and they are checking their propagation schedule for me to determine when their species will be available in the spring and weather won't be a problem and I'll know when to place my order. They are one of the nurseries that ship whenever an order is placed and don't delay orders going to cold spots.

I really appreciate all the help this forum and the nurseries I've contact are giving me.

I wonder if Annie's Annuals uses some kind of insulation. Like styrofoam containers. If shippers can keep things frozen, they ought to also be able to keep things warm enough to not freeze.
Years ago, I bought a bunch of fuchsia starts without knowing what each one would look like. The nursery I purchased them from had tables of them. All with labels, but no photos availiable. So I just picked them out by names which appealed to me.
One of them grew and grew and grew for two years. It got huge and never produced a flower. I began to wonder if it was even really a fuchsia at all! By the time I decided to give up on it, the tag was long gone. I just don't have enough room for plants to not produce either a flower or fruit, if that is why I bought them. It must have been one of the species. Perhaps F. peniculata. It probably needed to get to a certain height or age before it would bloom.
I hope none of the ones you are looking for fall into this category!

On Annie's shipping info page they don't mention insulating for winter mail orders, but they do mention anyone outside their local area ordering plants to be delivered during winter to colder states does so at their own risk. Which translates -- wait for spring!

Annie's did send me their propagation time table and which species will be available during March, April, May, June... So I'm hoping the plants I want will be available at the same time so I don't have to place more than one order, due to shipping costs.

And, I understand there might be some drawbacks to growing fuchsia species in my area, but I won't know until I try. One of the reasons I like to try the native plants, the species, is because the hybridizers haven't messed with the plant and haven't hybridized the nectar out. Every plant I buy is, afterall, all about my hummers!

That must be why my hummingbirds are so vigorous in their defense of the F. lycioide's and the F. magellanica's! I bet they are really going to love the F. boliviana and F. boliviana alba once they fully recover from getting half frozen. Both were in full bloom when it happened. But both were also still only about 1.5 feet tall.
By the way, the F. boliviana is recovering much, much faster than the alba.
What I am looking forward to is the fruit!